


Second Chance

by SugarCrystal



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Angst, M/M, Prompt Fill, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 05:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15188333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SugarCrystal/pseuds/SugarCrystal
Summary: Fill for Red Dwarf Kink Meme on Livejournal. Prompt was: "AU where Rimmer commits suicide and Lister is put in stasis after the funeral. 3 million years later, he gets a second chance with his secret crush."This should already be clear but - trigger warning for suicide and also attempted suicide.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Started this one ages ago and then forgot about it for months. Whoops.

It was well into the evening and Rimmer was still sitting at the bar, staring into his third glass of whiskey and hating his life, even more than usual. The place was empty apart from himself and the barman.  
But then he was always alone. He was totally alone in the world, unless you counted Lister. He had no friends and no partner, he'd never had any luck with either women or men. The only member of his family he was still remotely in touch with was his mother and she clearly hated him.  
The only thing he had to live for was his career, which would have been fine if he'd made a success of it, but he hadn't. He'd been working for the same company for his entire adult life and achieved exactly one promotion, from third technician to second technician and four medals, for years of service.  
And now, once again, he'd failed an exam and this one had been an easier exam. After years of trying for both astronavigation and engineering, he'd finally conceded that he was aiming too high, so he'd set his sights lower and tried for a basic computer course instead. A job in the IT department may not be officerhood but it was still higher up the ranks and better paid than what he was currently doing and got you a certain amount of respect. And he'd still failed.  
He drained his glass and ordered a fourth one.  
The barman poured him another whiskey with an unsympathetic look, he wanted to close for the night and this moping technician needed to hurry up and leave.

Rimmer meandered down a corridor. So, this was what his life (if you could call it a life) had come to, drunk and kicked out of the bar.  
He stared out of a window. Space. The final frontier. Where did that come from again? _Star Wars_ maybe? He felt tired suddenly and sat down on the floor. Home. Quarters. He should go back. Go back and sleep.  
"Alright, smeghead?" a passer-by whose name escaped him commented and a couple more people sniggered. Someone else wandered past and aimed a casual kick at him. Nothing he wasn't used to.  
His unfocused gaze travelled the corridor, eventually arriving at the airlock. The thought swam through his head that there was a way out, his way out of a life of constant unhappiness and endless failure.  
He dragged himself upright and approached it, numbly. He pressed his hand to the button and watched blankly as the door slid open. Unthinking, unfeeling, acting only on impulse, he stepped forward into the airlock and engaged the mechanism.  
The door slid shut behind him leaving him in between two sets of doors, in a limbo. He closed his eyes and waited, the warning alarm began bleeping in his ear. Then, before he had any chance to change his mind, the door in front of him flew open and sucked him out into the vacuum. He felt a furious rush of air surround him for a few brief seconds, then nothing.

Lister woke the next morning at the sound of Rimmer's alarm clock. After thirty seconds of Rimmer not switching it off, he rolled out of bed to deal with it himself and noted Rimmer's absence and the fact his bunk looked unslept in. That was odd but Lister was not unduly worried. He got himself some coffee and began to wash and dress.  
As he was pulling his trousers on, Holly appeared onscreen. "Dave, the captain wants to see you."  
"Me? The captain?" said Lister, puzzled. What on Earth could the captain want to see the lowest ranking crew member in person for? "What about?"  
"It's best if you just go and see him, Dave," said Holly.

Lister knocked on the captain's door, feeling a little apprehensive. "You wanted to see me, Sir?" he asked politely.  
"Come in, Dave," said Hollister, in a kindly tone. "Sit down."  
That didn't sound as though he was in any trouble but it didn't sound good either, people very rarely used first names on the ship, especially not the captain. Something must be very badly wrong. Lister took a seat, worried.  
"Dave," said Hollister slowly. "Rimmer's dead."  
"What?" Lister stared at him helplessly. "What do you mean dead?"  
"Suicide. He threw himself out the airlock last night, we don't know why yet."  
"Are you sure?" Lister asked. It was a stupid question but he felt the need to ask it.  
"We're sure," said Todhunter gently. "It's on camera."  
"Do you want to see it?" Hollister asked.  
Lister just nodded mutely.  
"Holly, play that black box recording again."  
Holly's screen changed into a view of a corridor from the security camera point of view, Lister watched as Rimmer walked into view, clearly drunk and stared out of one of the windows for several seconds before sagging to the floor, sitting for a minute or so, being mocked by passers by for lying drunk in a corridor, and then awkwardly getting up again and making his way to the airlock.  
"We thought you might know something about it," said Hollister carefully. "We thought maybe he'd left a note for you or something but obviously not."  
Lister shook his head, not trusting his voice to speak without breaking down.  
Todhunter considered. "Was it before or after the hologram discs were backed up for the night? Because if it was after, we could bring his hologram back and ask him."  
Hollister consulted his PC. "Looks like it was before. Well, that's no good, his memory'll be 24 hours behind." He sighed. "Nothing we can do then. It'll just have to go down on the records as an unexplained suicide. I hate those," he muttered privately  
"We should still have a funeral," Todhunter suggested. "We can't hold a proper one without a body, but we can have a token funeral, like a memorial service." He gave Lister a sympathetic look. "Would you like to be there?"  
Lister nodded, still not trusting himself to speak.  
Hollister smiled kindly, noticing how distraught he seemed. "Take the day off, Dave," he offered. "Someone else can cover your shift."

Lister returned to his quarters, locked the door behind him and leaned against it, choking back sobs. Rimmer's empty bunk was still there, sheets pristine as ever. He flung himself onto it face down and buried his face in Rimmer's pillow. He breathed deeply, inhaling Rimmer's scent, and let himself cry.  
Rimmer had annoyed the smeg out of him when he was alive but now he was gone, Lister couldn't remember any of Rimmer's bad traits, only the things he loved about him. And beneath it all, he had loved Rimmer, he really had. Why hadn't he told him how he felt? Why hadn't he said something? What had he been so afraid of? What was the worst that could have happened?  
"Rimmer," he sobbed into the pillow. "Why'd you do it, man? What was wrong?"  
If only Rimmer had talked to him, maybe he could have helped. Maybe he somehow could have made things better.  
Holly watched him from his screen with concern. "Hey, Dave," he said eventually. "Do you wanna talk about it?"  
Lister sat up and scrubbed his face on his t-shirt. "What's to talk about, Hol? He's gone."  
"I dunno," said Holly. "I'm a computer, I dunno what to say when someone's died. You're obviously upset though, if you want to talk, I can listen."  
Lister sniffed hard. "I just.., I just..., I loved him, Hol," he blurted out.  
"Did you?" said Holly in surprise and then considered that that might perhaps be an inappropriate response. "I mean, I thought you two didn't like each other," he tried instead  
"It was more complicated than that. It was..., I just...," Lister suddenly found himself pouring out his feelings, feelings he'd hadn't even known he had, about Rimmer's gorgeous hazel eyes and the little smirk he did when something amused him and the funny thing he did with his nostrils when he was annoyed and his silly little habits about storing stuff in size order or alphabetically and the fact he was the only person on board to keep all his shirts and trousers ironed and boots polished and always wear a tie.  
Holly listened impassively. He had no idea how to respond to any of this but letting Dave get it all off his chest seemed wise.

The following day, Lister practically sleepwalked his way through his shift alone. There were no difficult jobs, he could do this without Rimmer, he could do this with his eyes shut, but he didn't _want_ to do it without Rimmer.  
He wondered on-and-off what happened to two-person shifts when one of them died. Maybe he'd be reassigned to another shift, or maybe another technician would be given Rimmer's old job and Lister would continue doing the same job working under someone else, or maybe Lister would get Rimmer's old job, a promotion to second technician and head of Z-Shift with a new third technician brought in to be his assistant. He realised that he didn't like the idea of any of those options.  
When the shift was over, Petersen came looking for him. "Hey, man, you wanna come for a drink tonight?" he offered.  
Lister shook his head. "Thanks, man, but I don't feel like it."  
Petersen thoughtfully scratched his head under his hat as he studied Lister's face. Something was obviously troubling him but Petersen's alcohol-addled brain cells had a hard time figuring it out. "You upset about Smeghead?" was the eventual conclusion he came to.  
"Don't call him that," said Lister shortly and walked away before he lost his temper with the drunken idiot. He couldn't expect Petersen to understand, he couldn't expect anybody to, it was best to just avoid everyone for now.  
He went to the first bar he could think of that was unlikely to contain anyone he knew and bought himself two strong drinks, then returned to his room and cried on Rimmer's bunk again.  
It was Sunday tomorrow, the day of the funeral.

Funerals were basic affairs, they were available as a broadcast to the whole ship but attended only by Hollister, Todhunter, and whoever had known the deceased best. Which was just Lister, in Rimmer's case. Lister hadn't written a speech, he was in no fit state to, he just blurted out something about missing Rimmer before breaking down in tears again whilst Todhunter awkwardly patted him on the shoulder.

Back in his bunkroom afterwards, Lister swigged down his fourth lager in a row, wishing he had something stronger. He was totally alone now, unless you counted Petersen and the others. He had no real friends, only drinking buddies. Kochanski had dumped him after only a few weeks, he'd never been able to hold down a relationship for more than a couple of months. He didn't even have any family, they were all long dead, and his birth family, whoever they had been, had abandoned him as a baby. Rimmer had been the only real presence in his life for a long time and now he'd left him too. Everyone left him in the end.  
And what else did he have to live for, a career? He'd spent his life doing minimum wage grunt work both on Earth and in space and never found anything he really _wanted_ to do until he'd got the idea to own a little farm and be self-sufficient, breed horses and sell hotdogs and doughnuts from a stand. It had been a nice idea, still was a nice idea, but it wasn't financially realistic, the only way he could possibly afford to do it was to buy land that no one else wanted because it was flooded and the more he thought about trying to run a farm on flooded land now, the more he realised what a stupid idea it actually was.  
He threw his empty lager can into the bin and cracked open his fifth one. He morosely watched Frankenstein as she finished her dinner, paused for a quick wash and then jumped back into the ducts. Even Frankenstein had let him down, the cat was supposed to have been company but she spent most of her time off alone, exploring the ship.

Lister staggered drunkenly down the same corridor where Rimmer had ended it all. A worried Holly watched him from his screen and then disappeared, deciding he ought to go and find someone before Lister did something everyone would regret.  
Lister half-collapsed against the window and stared out into the blackness of space. Rimmer was out there somewhere, wasn't he? He drained his last can and tossed it into the nearest garbage chute, then turned back to the window. The glass was cool against his forehead, his mind fogged with the amount of alcohol in his system. A semi-coherent thought floated around in his head, Rimmer, the airlock, he could go to him. Right now.  
He staggered to the airlock door and drunkenly fumbled his hand against the button, it lit up in red and Lister watched the door slide open, his mind full of vague images of a bright, shiny afterlife and Rimmer's arms around him.  
"I'm coming, Arnie," he choked out as he half-fell forward into the airlock.  
As he reached out for the button to engage the mechanism, a hand closed gently but firmly over his shoulder.  
"I'm sorry, Dave, I can't let you do that," said Todhunter and then grimaced. "And apologies if I sounded like I'm impersonating the computer from _2001_ at an inappropriate time. But I really _can't_ let you throw yourself out of the airlock as well." He gently guided Lister back inside, then pressed the button again to close the airlock door. "Come on, Dave, let's get you out of here."  
Lister sniffed loudly. "No. Wanna bewith'im," he slurred and collapsed against Todhunter's chest.  
Todhunter gently patted him on the back, feeling hopelessly lost. This was way out of his area of expertise; he was an officer, not a doctor.

"Well, he's slept off the alcohol," said the nurse. "It was only lager but he had a lot of it. He's alright now, physically, other than a bit hungover but he obviously needs some help."  
"Is there anyone he can talk to?"  
"Not at the moment. We'll put him on the waiting list to see someone but none of the psychiatrists have appointments free right now."  
"Okay," said Todhunter. "And in the meantime, can he stay here?"  
The nurse shook her head with a slight grimace. "I'm afraid we don't have any beds free either this week."  
Todhunter sighed and privately cursed the budget cuts. "Well, we can't just let him stay on his own, he might try and harm himself again."  
"Is there anyone who could look after him in the meantime?" the nurse suggested. "A friend or someone?"

"The only regular friends he's got are those guys from Catering he's always drinking with and they're hardly responsible enough," Todhunter consulted with the captain. "Or there's Kochanski, but I don't think being around the woman who recently dumped him is going to help his mental state."  
Hollister considered, tapping his pen on his desk. "There's always stasis."  
"Excuse me, Sir?"  
"We could put him in stasis for a week or two. He can hardly hurt himself in there, right?"

"You'll be safe in here," said Todhunter kindly. "Remember, it's just for a couple of days, maybe a week, until a psychiatrist is free to see you."  
Lister shrugged, if it meant feeling nothing at all, he'd welcome it. He stepped into the booth and Todhunter gave him a last friendly squeeze of the shoulder before closing the door and engaging the mechanism. The stasis field activated, enveloping Lister and freezing him in time.  
Todhunter smiled sadly at him through the glass and walked away. Lister would be perfectly safe for now and they'd get him some help when they could, everything would be fine.

Four days later, the driveplate blew.


	2. Chapter 2

One of the skutters slid Rimmer's hologram disc into the box and Holly switched him on. "Hello, Arnold," he said kindly as Rimmer appeared. "How are you feeling?"  
Rimmer looked around the drive room in bewilderment. "What happened? How did I get here? I was in the bunkroom just now. Have I teleported?"  
"Calm down, Arnold," said Holly. "You weren't in the bunkroom, that's just your memory from the last disc back-up."  
"What are you blathering about?" Rimmer ran his hand through his hair, pausing as his fingers brushed against something metallic firmly attached to his forehead. He did a double take, fingers exploring the letter H and spun around to find a mirror. The drive room didn't have one. "Am I a hologram?" Rimmer demanded.  
"Yeah, you're dead, Arnold," Holly intoned.  
"Well, why am I a hologram, surely I'm not important enough?"  
"Circumstances change, Arnold," said Holly flatly.  
"And where's the rest of the crew? Shouldn't someone else be here?"  
"Everybody's dead, Arnold."  
"What?!" Rimmer exclaimed. "How?"  
"Radiation leak. One of the drive plates was incorrectly repaired, it exploded. Silly old skutters, eh?" He attempted to insert a chuckle but it fell flat and he changed it to an embarrassed cough. "Everybody was killed by a lethal dose of Cadmium II. Except for you, you were already dead."  
"Oh, really? And how did I die exactly?" Rimmer demanded.  
"Well, you...," Holly broke off and considered matters. "Maybe he should tell you."  
"Who's 'he'?"  
"The only survivor," said Holly. "Dave Lister."  
"What?!" Rimmer said again. " _Lister_ survived?" Lister was the lowest rank on the ship, how had he managed to survive when nobody else had? "Why him? How?" he asked Holly.  
"He was in stasis at the time so I just left him in there until it was safe to let him out. Thing is, Arnold..," Holly paused. "That took a while."  
A while? That sounded ominous. Rimmer sighed. "Go on then, tell me the worst."  
"About three million years." Holly stopped talking and watched with interest to see how Rimmer would react.  
Rimmer sank into a chair, half fell through it and leapt up again with a yell.  
"Yeah, you'll need to practice," said Holly sympathetically. "You'll get used to it. Thing is, after all that time, Dave's probably the last human alive. That's why I brought you back, to keep him company, stop him going insane."  
Rimmer eyed the chair suspiciously, gave up on the idea of trying to sit down and tried pacing back and forth instead. "But I don't understand," he protested. "Why do you think _I'm_ the person to keep Lister company? He didn't even like me."  
"It seems he liked you a lot more than he let on," Holly told him. "I'll let him explain when you see him. Best if you wait outside while I bring him here, I'll call you in when the time's right."

Right, now time to get Dave. Holly took a deep breath, as much as a computer can, and deactivated the stasis field, before unlocking the door, which swung open heavily. "Okay, Dave," he intoned. "It is now safe for you to emerge from stasis."  
Lister exited the booth and looked around the corridor, expecting someone to meet him. "Todhunter?" he called when he couldn't see anyone.  
"He's dead, Dave."  
"What?!" Lister spun around on the spot, trying to find a Holly screen. "Todhunter too? How?" There were no screens in this corridor, Lister realised, Holly could only speak to him as a disembodied voice.  
"Everybody's dead, Dave," Holly's voice continued. "Please go...,"  
"What, Captain Hollister?" Lister blurted out.  
"Yes, everybody. Please...,"  
"And Petersen? And..,"  
Holly took another deep breath. "Everybody. Is. Dead. Please go to the drive room and we can talk properly."  
Seeing no other immediate options, Lister made his way to the drive room, vaguely wondering about the mysterious piles of white powder everywhere, and slumped into the first chair he could see that wasn't occupied with one. Holly appeared onscreen in front of him and did his best attempt at a sympathetic smile.  
"So, everybody's dead?" Lister asked flatly. "What happened?"  
"Radiation leak," Holly found himself explaining for the second time in ten minutes. "One of the drive plates was incorrectly repaired. The whole crew was killed by a lethal dose of Cadmium II."  
"I see," said Lister, although he didn't really. "And when it was over, you let me out?  
"Well, not exactly," said Holly slowly. "You see, I couldn't release you until the radiation fallout had dropped to a safe level."  
"How long did that take?"  
"Are you sure you want to know?" asked Holly, worried about Lister's mental state. "I mean, you're still depressed, aren't you? Are you sure you can handle it?"  
"Just tell me."  
"Three million years. Give or take."  
"Three million..?!"  
"Yes. It's a laugh really, isn't it?" Holly attempted to cheer him up.  
"Not really, no!" Lister fumbled a cigarette out of his packet with shaking hands and lit it in an attempt to calm his nerves. "Can we get back to Earth?" he suggested.  
"We can try," Holly agreed. "But I wouldn't get your hopes up. It'd take us another three million years. Even if we made it, Earth and the rest of the solar system might not exist anymore by then, if they still do now. And the human race has most likely died out by now anyway. I mean, three million years," he reiterated. "The dinosaurs didn't last that long."  
"So I'm all alone?" Lister clarified. "Just me? Stranded in deep space?" So, he'd lost everything, he'd had virtually nothing to begin with and he'd lost it. And now it looked as though he was going to spend the rest of his life, which could be as long as seventy years or so, all alone on a ship he couldn't leave. What had been the point of Todhunter stopping him from killing himself, again? He almost had to laugh. Almost. He took a long drag of his cigarette instead.  
"Not quite," said Holly. "Before you go and try to jump out of the airlock again, I've brought a hologram back." He cleared the throat he didn't technically have. "Alright, Arnold, you can come in now."  
Lister looked up as the hologram strode into the room to greet him and his eyes lit up. "Rimmer!" He ran to hug him but went straight through Rimmer's projection and tripped over a chair, sending a pile of the mysterious powder flying. "Smeg!" he swore. He turned back to Rimmer and considered the logistics. "Okay." He stepped into the middle of Rimmer and hugged himself. "Closest I can get."  
"What are you doing, you goit?"  
"Hugging you," said Lister simply.  
"Why?"  
"Because...," Lister stepped back out of Rimmer and considered matters. Last night (or what was last night from his perspective), if Rimmer had walked back into the room, Lister would have flung himself into his arms, sobbing out endless declarations of love. But under the current circumstances, maybe that was a bad idea, Rimmer already had a lot to come to terms with and, as he was probably still mentally fragile, the last thing Lister wanted was to freak him out. Declarations of love were best saved for a proper talk. "Because I've missed you, man," he said instead, which was true enough.  
Rimmer just looked baffled. "How have you missed me? I haven't been anywhere."

"What's the last thing you remember?" Lister asked as they sat at the table back in their old bunkroom.  
"Oh, I don't know," Rimmer sighed. "I was here in the bunkroom, I was cramming for my exam the next day, that's it. That was the last disc backup I was around for apparently. The next thing I know, Holly's bringing me back as a hologram." He looked at Lister. "So what happened? How did I die? Holly said I should ask you."  
"You killed yourself, man. You jumped out the airlock."  
"Did I?" Rimmer looked baffled. "What on Io did I do that for?"  
"You failed the exam."  
"I always fail exams," Rimmer protested. "I've never killed myself before."  
"You were drunk." Lister shrugged. "That's all I know, man. Only you know what you were thinking and those memories weren't saved."  
Rimmer silently stared ahead, thinking. It was a lot to take in. Yes, maybe if he had failed an exam that was supposed to be easier than the sort of exams he usually took, he might feel like a lost cause. He might get depressed, he might reflect on the hopelessness of his life, he might have too much to drink. And whilst drunk and depressed, if he happened to see an obvious way out, he might possibly..., "What were you doing in stasis anyway?" he asked, as a change of topic.  
"Suicide watch," Lister admitted, somewhat embarrassed. "I nearly threw myself out the airlock after you."  
Rimmer stared at him. "You did that?"  
"I was going to but Todhunter caught me in time, they locked me up so I couldn't hurt myself. It was only supposed to be temporary, until a shrink was free to see me, but I guess that didn't work out the way they planned."  
"But why, Listy? Why would you want to?"  
Lister shrugged. "I was thinking..., Oh, I don't know what I was thinking, I was drunk. That I'd find you in the afterlife, I suppose, if there is one, and we'd be together. Or if there isn't, we'd still be together, just two bodies floating in space. Something like that. I don't know, I was drunk," he reiterated. "I just didn't...," he took a deep breath. "I didn't want to live without you, man."  
Rimmer glanced at him awkwardly and swallowed hard. "What..., what do you mean? Didn't want to live without me? What are you saying, Lister?"  
Lister sighed. Here goes, now or never. "I'm saying I love you," he blurted out.  
Rimmer fell through his chair again. That was a bit of a mood-spoiler, Lister had to try hard to keep a straight face as Rimmer picked himself up, trying to look dignified.  
"I see," Rimmer said eventually, his voice coming out rather high-pitched.  
"I was in love with you for a long time, I think. I didn't just realise it until you weren't there anymore."  
"That's a lot to come to terms with, Lister," said Rimmer, his voice still unnaturally high. "I thought you didn't even like me."  
"Well, I didn't _all_ the time," Lister pointed out. "You were a complete smeghead after all. But..., oh I don't know, there was something else there."  
"Evidently," Rimmer squawked. He slowly and carefully sat back down and, when he was sure he wasn't going to fall through the chair again, looked across at Lister who was now awkwardly examining his fingernails. "So..., you, er..., you love me, do you?"  
"Yes," said Lister quietly, eyes fixed on his fingers. He took a deep breath and risked a glance at Rimmer. "Is that okay?"  
"I, er..., think so."  
Lister smiled as relief washed over him and he reached out and squeezed Rimmer's hand. Or tried to. "Sorry," he said quickly when his hand went right through Rimmer's.  
Rimmer smiled at Lister's embarrassment. "Don't worry, we both need to get used to it."  
"I wish I'd told you how I felt about you while you were alive now." He looked across hopefully at Rimmer. "If I had, would you still have done it?"  
"No," said Rimmer softly. "I don't think I would." He looked at Lister's hopeful face and wished that he could put his arm around him. "But if I hadn't, then you wouldn't have been in stasis and we'd both have been killed by this radiation leak."  
"That's true," Lister realised.  
Maybe, possibly, things sometimes happened for a reason. Maybe this way was what he and Rimmer were destined for.  
As a hologram, Rimmer was separated from him, as if he existed on a different plane. Lister could see him and hear him, but he couldn't feel him or taste him or smell him. So, two out of five, maybe that wasn't too bad.  
"Can we try?" he asked hopefully. "You and me? Try and make a go of it? I know we can't touch but it's better than nothing and I'm sure we can find ways around that." He reached out again and held his hand hovering just over where Rimmer's projected hand appeared to be resting on the table. "Whatever drove you to it, man, whatever hurt you, I wanna make it better. If I can."  
"Truth be told Lister, there's a lot of things," said Rimmer quietly. "My childhood, my family, my lack of success..., Are you sure you can handle all that baggage?"  
"I don't know," Lister admitted. "But I want to try. I wanna try more than anything. I mean, smeg, what else have I got to live for now?"  
"Okay." Rimmer smiled at him, Lister smiled back. "Let's try."  
Lister would never be with Rimmer physically, he realised that. Never feel Rimmer's arms around him, taste his lips, inhale his scent, feel his warmth, bury his face in his shoulder, spread his legs open and feel Rimmer inside him. None of that would ever happen.  
But there were still things they _could_ do. They couldn't touch but they could talk, they could comfort each other with words, they could lie down next to each other, look into each other's eyes. It wasn't ideal - it was far from ideal - but he'd take it over nothing.


End file.
